Chris Brown Interview with ‘The Guardian’

On losing his virginity at 8 to a 15-year-old girl: “Yeah, really. Uh-huh.” He grins and chuckles. “It’s different in the country.” Brown grew up with a great gang of boy cousins, and they watched so much porn that he was raring to go. “By that point, we were already kind of like hot to trot, you know what I’m saying? Like, girls, we weren’t afraid to talk to them; I wasn’t afraid. So, at eight, being able to do it, it kind of preps you for the long run, so you can be a beast at it. You can be the best at it.” (Now 24, he doesn’t want to say how many women he’s slept with: “But you know how Prince had a lot of girls back in the day? Prince was, like, the guy. I’m just that, today. But most women won’t have any complaints if they’ve been with me. They can’t really complain. It’s all good.”)

On if he regrets growing up too fast and in the public eye: “Honestly, where I’m from, probably not. I think me being able to travel from the small town I was from, me already having a good IQ, and you know being intelligent, and regular stuff, I just had to learn more and more of the street life, you know, how to maneuver around a room full of wolves.”

On dealing with naysayers: “You know, whether it be naysayers, people that won’t say, ‘Hey, I like that.’ But as far as me being young, like, I don’t regret it, I love it, being able to accomplish my dreams at an early age. That’s just showing the kids that’s coming up in sixth or seventh grade, I can do this. If I really stick to it, I can do it. ‘Chris was my age when he did it.'”

On advice he’d give his 14-year-old self: “Pay attention to details, details, details. I’m 24 now, so I’m making sure I’m on top of it, but back then I was just, like, whatever we’re doing, I’m just glad to be here, you know?”

On the “Rihanna incident” being a big wake up call: “I had to stop acting like a little teenager, a crazy, wild young guy.” But when I ask if that’s how he thinks of himself when he looks back at that time, he snaps back, “No, not at all” as if the description had been mine and not his. “Cos you can talk with all my girls that I did mess with before, and it’s never been a violent history.” Then he switches again: “But at the same time, I learned from it, and it was almost like… I wouldn’t say it happened for a reason, but it was something to trigger my mind to be more of a mature adult. To handle myself in situations, don’t throw tantrums, don’t be a baby about it.”

On his conviction after the “Rhianna incident”: That was probably, like, one of the most troubling times in my life, because I was 18 or 19, so being able to feel the hatred from more adult people, you don’t understand it at the time, because you made a mistake.” But he knew one thing: “I’m going to come back, I know the music that I’m doing, how hard I work, is not just for nothing.” He found himself writing seven or eight songs a night, “just out of pure… I wouldn’t say heartbreak, but just pure ambition. To prove people wrong. So from there it wasn’t really a problem. I just focused on what was necessary, abiding by all the stuff I had to do legally and professionally.”

On lashing out at the D.A. & feeling unfairly picked on: “Community service, that shit is a bitch. I’ll be honest – and you can quote me on that – that is a motherfucker there. For me, I think it’s more of a power trip for the DA. I can speak freely now, because I don’t really care what they say about it, but as far as, like, the 1,000 extra hours they gave me, that’s totally fricking bananas.”

“They want me to be the example. Young black kids don’t have the fairer chances. You can see Lindsay Lohan in and out of court every day, you see Charlie Sheen, whoever else, do what they want to do. There hasn’t been any incident that I started since I got on probation, even with the Frank Ocean fight, the Drake situation, all those were defense modes. People think I just walk around as the aggressor, this mad black guy, this angry, young, troubled kid, but I’m not. I’m more and more laid-back. It’s just that people know if they push a button, it’ll make more news than their music. Attaching themselves to me, good or bad, will benefit them.”

On his money ambitions: “I don’t want to be rich, I want to be wealthy. There’s a difference, you know? I’m rich, but I’m not in the $200m mark.”

On his album selling ambitions: “…To sell ground-breaking numbers on an album. Just to be able to have that moment to say, I did it. So as like, I have a stamp. I would really like to mean something to the world, instead of me just being this fungus.” Hang on a minute: fungus? “Yeah, like the decay of society. I don’t want to be the decay of society, I’d like to be the uplifting part.”